Brazil's 2016/2017 coffee crop, which recently began early harvest, is forecast at 56.4 million bags, a 12 percent jump from last year due to more favorable rains earlier in the season, local crop analyst Safras e Mercado said on Monday. The harvest, if confirmed, would be the biggest since 2012/13, when the crop reached 57.1 million 60-kg bags and would slightly exceed the 2013/14 crop of 56 million bags, Safras' coffee specialist Gil Barabach said.
The Arabicas will account for 42.8 million bags of the crop total, up from 36.9 million bags last year. Conillon, the local variety of robusta that is consumed almost entirely on the domestic market, will reach 13.6 million bags, up 200,000 bags from the previous season, Barabach said. "Arabica is what's pushing the crop output higher," he said. "There could still be surprises with conillon. It could be smaller. Espirito Santo state has suffered losses."
Barabach said harvesting of conillon in Rondonia began a couple weeks ago, though Espirito Santo, Brazil's main producer of the bean, has only now just begun to harvest. Northern Espirito Santo suffered from a severe drought this season. Although increased output from other productive regions will likely offset some of these losses, prices for the bean are expected to rise, he said. "The (arabica) crop will allow the rebuilding of coffee stocks," Barabach said. He was referring to stocks that have fallen to their lowest levels in several years due to the drought, which curbed output from the world's largest producer of the commodity over the past two years.